They switched the bad surf movie playing outside my hotel room. It was the same movie shown over and over each night, for nearly a week. The movie wasn't very good, but now that it's gone, I miss it.

   I suppose an explanation is due: The TV Tour is being held for the second consecutive summer at the Beverly Hilton, in the heart of Beverly Hills. The Hilton is one of those classic L.A. hotels with a grandly storied history. It was built by Conrad Hilton in 1955 and later owned by Merv Griffin. American presidents from JFK to Bill Clinton have stayed in the presidential suite on the eighth floor.

     The Hilton is easy to spot for one striking physical characteristic: The wall. The wall is the enormous white wall that banks the hotel's swimming pool. Amid the urban sprawl of Beverly Hills, the wall resembles an oversized drive-in movie screen

    I knew nothing of the wall when I booked my room. For whatever reason, I received what is called a “cabana room” this Tour. The exterior exit of my hotel room is roughly 20 feet from the deep end of the pool, which means I'm directly facing the big wall.

     When I checked in the hotel last Monday night, I looked out to see the opening credits of a film called Slippery When Wet, a film written, produced and directed by Bruce Brown, a California surf-movie legend, I'm told. Mr. Brown was made briefly famous from his 1966 documentary Endless Summer, which  peaked around the same time as the Beach Boys and and played to mainstream audiences via theatrical release.

    Endless Summer was a fine film. Slippery When Wet, not so much. The 1958 documentary is grainy and badly edited, and there's not a whole lot happening in it, save for California dudes wheeling around in wood-paneled wagons and catching waves. But the half-hour film ran over and over, until midnight, without sound, which presumably provided kitschy-cool visuals for the bar patrons allowed to mill around the pool once the sun went down.

    Oh, did I mention my room is right beside Trader Vic's?

     The Hilton's relocation of its famed bar has the large patio adjoining the pool area. There are also cabana-style futons, four of them, each with curtains, available for rent; I only wish I was making this up. Trader Vic's still attracts the beautiful people, or at least those people willing to pay $12 per mai-tai cocktail. Trying to get to my room Saturday night was like walking through the movie Swingers.

    But once safe in the room, there was always my bad surf movie--until Sunday night. Without notice, the movie playing switched to Water-Logged, a 1962 Bruce Brown feature. There wasn't really any substantial difference between the two films: Water-Logged was slightly less grainy, but it was still all about surf bums surfing, this time in Hawaii and other exotic locales.

    But I had become accustomed to Slippery When Wet. I could watch it with my peripheral vision while writing, and after a solid week of screening, I knew each scene and jump cut. It was a terrible movie, to be sure, but unlike most of the offerings on this TV Critics Tour, I knew what to expect. There is still something to be said for lowered entertainment expectations.